Heat is on cool Rangers

Alex McLeishs side are in determined mood ahead of their Champions League qualifier against Famagusta in Cyprus

There is no time to pause. Yesterday was Inverness, Tuesday is Cyprus and next Sunday will be Aberdeen. Challenges arrive and then quickly make way for the next one. That is how it is as the season rushes headlong into being. It is Alex McLeish’s role to find a balance in this ruffled existence, to spin a thread of stability. For the coming weeks will tell us much about how this Rangers team is evolving, we will see glimpses of its capabilities, and in the stir there must be a measure of composed assurance.

McLeish, for the first time in his spell at Ibrox, is the Old Firm manager starting the season from a position of strength. The only players to have left the club are the ones he was prepared to lose and four first-team players — Brahim Hemdani, Jose-Karl Pierre-Fanfan, Julien Rodriguez and Ian Murray — have arrived. The first